Pop Tarts and Goldfish

Wow, today has flown by! I'm so glad that I finally have a moment to sit down. The kids are both asleep, I still have tons to do, but I need a minute to rest my back

This is going to be a long post. Hope you hang in there, cause it's awesome!

So, pictures from yesterday. My two 15 minute clean/organize the House (and not just my recipe box, lol). I was back in this desk area, because the area above it was quite a mess. There were tons of papers filling our "inbox" green mail station (it was almost to heavy for it's hangers, eek!) and in the basket up above on the shelf (which is our "to mail/to file" station) there were papers (to file, supposedly) filling up the whole basket, and precariously stacked up as high, if not higher, than the file books next to it. It looks much better now, doesn't it?

Scarily, there were things up there (magazines and adds and such) from last Christmas.

Wow my life feels "lighter" now.

That's the last of the update from yesterday, on to today's!

I started the day with an extra hour of sleep (Thanks, Mike-Love) which was very appreciated because Rowan had a rough night and kept me up most of it. I'd meant to get up about seven or eight, because he normally eats around then, and get my day started....g ot up at 9:30 instead. But I've accomplished so much today that I'm not letting myself feel bad about that!

First order of business? A much needed shower! Rowan was asleep; so around 10:30 I gave Mike the baby monitor, loaded Rhia in the car, and went to the Grocery store to try my new budget out! Ready to find out what I'm doing different?

I found this really awesome website called Once a Month Mom. They make menus based on the seasonally available produce and the seasonal sales, then they put them in a list for you with this handy feature. You type in how many people you're feeding for the month, and all the recipes and the master shopping list go "blip, blip, kazoom!" and suddenly the amounts for each recipe reflect the amount of ingredients you need to make the servings you need to feed that meal to your family twice that month. It's really awesome! (there's something like eight dinner recipes, four or five lunch recipes, and three breakfast recipes on each menu) You end up with enough food to get you through most of the month if you're the type of person who likes to eat out a few times a month. If you're not the type to eat out at all??? Just double the number of people you're cooking for, and as long as you're ok eating each meal 4 times that month, you have more than enough to get you through the whole month! That's what I did. I put "6" in the "how many are you feeding" box and it generated my grocery list for me. 

Today I went grocery shopping and tonight and tomorrow I'm going to put it all together. They (the web site) even put it all together so that I don't have to figure out which part of which recipe to do in what order. There's instructions to step me through it so that I use my time in the most efficient manner! I'm so excited! There is a $8/month fee to use the website, but you can download as many menus (and their shopping list, instructions and labels) as you want, so after the first month you only have to pay the $8/month if you want to get new menus each month. There's already something like 2+ years of menus on the website, and they upload a new one each month; again, they base them on the seasonally available produce and the current sales trends.

Now, for me, the best part! How am I saving $500 a month? (I've had someone ask how I SPEND $500/month....well....) This is the embarrassing part for me. But when I started this blog I said that I be honest and accountable, no matter how personally embarrassing or painful it might be. And it's painful to admit this.

I'm a shopaholic.

Really.

Addicted to shopping.

In this post I mentioned briefly that I have trouble keeping the budget balanced and my spending in the budgeted limits. Well when I was pregnant it was even worse. Before I got pregnant I was doing really well, actually. But the minute my brain gets that extra progesterone running through my blood system, my cognitive ability goes through the basement floor! I have a really hard time making rational decisions when I'm pregnant. I'd be at the store, Rhia would be playing with a pair of shoes, and why not? She needed new ones anyway (she did, but still...) I kept telling Mike to take the card away, but it took him several months to realize that I was serious that I needed that kind of intervention. Addicted. Badly. I love it! It's so much fun! (Probably why I'm on such a high today, actually....I got to spend money!)

That's problem number one.

Problem number two? No energy because of my health, and so I'd plan a menu for the week, I'd take the budget for the week (in cash, cause Mike had finally taken away my debit card like I asked him to) and go get groceries. No problem, right? Not so much. No energy, see? So it would be time to make dinner and I wouldn't have the strength to do so, and when Mike would finally get off work he would be to tired to cook, so we'd go get food from McYuck or something. (Part of why I'm so sick all the time? Probably. Processed food makes me really sick.) Because of that we were overspending our food/household expenses budget by almost $100 each week, at least. Some weeks were $200 over or more, before he took my debit card away. And then each week we were throwing away quite a bit of food that spoiled before I got it cooked. I get Migraines (which you know if you've been following this or have known me for any length of time) and one of my biggest triggers is MSG or Yeast Extract. Processed anything is basically poison to me. The soup aisle? Yeah, not a thing on that aisle I can eat. Potatoes Au Gratin? Nope. Stuffing? Nope. Etc, etc, etc....so cooking, in my house, needs to be as "whole food" as possible. Which means lots of produce. Which if you don't use, spoils spectacularly! Huge waste of money, it's like I was just pouring it down the drain! Ugh. Anyway!

We have about $180 budgeted each week for food and misc. household expenses (like diapers, or lightbulbs, etc) We'd usually spend about $80-$140 on food, then use the rest on our misc. stuff. Then we'd overspend (I say "we", I mean "me"). Not counting the overspending (cause it's outside of budgeted expenses, and this is how I cut the budget, but am feeding my family better) we budget for $720 each month.

You ready for this?

Really?

My total grocery bill, today, for a whole month worth of food for a family of "three"? This whole cartload?

$231 and change.

From $720?

Almost $500 difference that we have budgeted for food and expenses, that we normally spend on mostly food, that we wont have to spend on food this month! And all I did was download this months grocery list and recipes from that website!

I have to prep the food tonight, and make it tomorrow, and I'll let you know how that goes; but I'm so excited! Now, instead of trying to scrape a shirt (or a new pair of toddler shoes, or shampoo, or a gift for a friend's birthday or baby shower, etc) out of what ever we have left over after our grocery list, and then inevitably spending almost $100 more than we're supposed to because "stuff happens" and we were eating out and weren't using our groceries we were buying, I've freed up enough funds that I should eliminate our overspending completely, and be able to take better care of our home, car, kids and selves! And! We won't NEED to eat out at all because all I'll have to do is throw a pan in the oven, turn it on, and viola! Here's Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner! Even if I get sick again (God Forbid!) that's such low effort on an average day that I'll be able to manage it. And I don't have to sift through recipes and put it all together, they've done all that work for me already.

Can you tell I'm excited???

So, on to today's complete update.
Fabulous Day!
~Got a load of laundry washed, dried........folded and put away! Finally! (have three more loads to fold and put away, but I finally got one done! *does a little dance*)
~Exercise? I am sore all over from shopping and pushing that cart (man it got heavy!) and then power cleaning for over an hour when I got home. I was gross and sweaty and out of breath, and I'm counting that as exercise.






~Housework? Heck yeah! Got the dirty, junky, moldy, overfull fridge and turned it into an empty thing of beauty, ready to be filled with all the newly acquired groceries!

I even scrubbed it. Isn't it beautiful?

And then I loaded it with bounty! 

That I'm going to actually use this time!

I have to chop, dice and slice, etc. to prep for and make the cooking day tomorrow easier. So my day isn't over yet, but today has been great! I think I might be able to do this thing!

And do you know the best part. Better than anything else? Today's the last day I ever have to feed Rhia pop tarts, applesause and a pile of goldfish for lunch because I don't have anything healthy ready to eat in the house and don't have the energy to make her good food. Thank you, God.

Have a great day, every one!